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Proper postmark wasn't enough
©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, Karen Randle put an extra stamp on the envelope containing her absentee vote for Al Gore, just to be on the safe side. She signed the oath on the envelope, had it properly witnessed and mailed it in Orlando on Nov. 2, five days before the election. Her ballot was rejected. Randle's ballot was one of 86 -- including many from black Democrats like herself -- that were postmarked in Orlando on Nov. 2 but were not logged in across town at the Orange County elections office until Nov. 10, too late to be counted. "This is totally ridiculous, totally crazy and totally outrageous," said Randle, who helps run a day-care center. "What more do I have to do to have my vote count?" Postal officials cannot explain the delay. They said that 95 percent of first-class mail in Orlando is delivered in one day, and only a tiny fraction takes longer than three days. They said they knew of no problems in November to account for the eight-day lag. Orange County election officials said they had hated to reject the ballots but their hands had been tied. Under the rules governing absentee voting in Florida, ballots sent from within the United States must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day. The ballots from Randle and the others, they said, arrived after the deadline. Only ballots from overseas are supposed to get the benefit of a 10-day window after the election. Those rules seek to strike a balance between making it easier for people to vote even if they cannot get to the polls and safeguarding against fraud. But in November they were applied unevenly in Florida after an effort by the Bush campaign to persuade critical Republican counties to count as many absentee votes as possible, even if they did not strictly comply with rules. As a result, ballots with postmarks from within the United States that arrived after Election Day met different fates depending on which county was counting. The canvassing board in Escambia County, a Bush stronghold in the Panhandle, accepted some ballots that arrived late with domestic postmarks. But officials in nearby Okaloosa said that while they regretted it, they felt they were bound by law to reject them. Some Okaloosa voters complained that their ballots had been disqualified by mail delays. Many had no postmarks to show when they had been mailed, but voter after voter said in interviews that they had mailed their ballots long before the election. "I kicked it out as soon as I got it," said Michael E. Lukawski, a Technical Sergeant in the Air Force whose vote for George W. Bush did not get from Oklahoma City to Okaloosa until eight days after the election. "It was well before the election." A further wrinkle compounded the difficulty canvassing boards faced when weighing ballots with late domestic postmarks: some actually were sent from overseas. Embassies sent ballots back in the diplomatic pouch that were not postmarked until they were mailed in the United States. Other votes were endangered by a corporation's good deed. DHL Worldwide Express, the courier service, offered to ship absentee ballots back to the United States free, as it has in the past. But instead of taking the ballots to their final destinations, the company took them only as far as New York and then put them in the regular mail. Some wound up with domestic postmarks. That is how Desiree Baron's vote, sent from Munich, Germany, where she works for the U.S. Consulate, wound up in Collier County with a Queens postmark. Officials initially voted to reject her ballot but later reconsidered, under pressure from the Bush campaign, and accepted it even though the postmark made it illegal. Baron said she was surprised to learn that the offer had almost cost her her vote. Some people whose ballots were accepted by lenient counties admitted in interviews that they had been in the United States and had simply waited too long before mailing their ballots. Others, like the 86 Orlando voters, voted correctly but had their ballots rejected for events beyond their control. "It makes me really angry that my voice was not heard," said Anne Simmons, who took her ballot for Gore to the post office on Nov. 2. "I find it very, very upsetting knowing I did what I was supposed to."
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
